Last week I started to get my first Academy Screener info update cards. Is it too early to think about the Oscars?
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Birthdays: Petrarch, Sir Edmund Hilary, Lord Elgin, Anne Hutchinson, Diana Rigg is 69, Natalie Wood, Theda Bara the Vamp, Carlos Santana, 1889- John, Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC. Sandra Oh is 36

1804 Sir Richard Owen born. He was the British scientist who coined the term Dinosaur for all the ancient lizard fossils. He lived to be 88 and opposed Darwin’s theories.

1869- Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad and in the Holy Land first published. If you ever wondered what was the most popular book in America during the 19th Century, it was not Moby Dick, War & Peace, Jane Eyre or David Copperfield. The all time best selling book in America during the Victorian Era was a now forgotten sappy travel diary" Tent Life in the Holy Land "by author William Prime. Twain had taken the Grand Tour abroad that was fashionable with the new American wealthy classes. He thought he’d have some fun recounting his own recollections of travel tinged with his famous wit.” To cross the Sea of Galilee by boat a big local Arab demanded eight dollars for use of his miserable conveyance. No wonder Christ preferred to walk.”

1919- Pancho Villa assassinated while driving in his new Dodge. Even with 16 bullets in him he still managed to shoot one of his attackers. Three years later someone broke into his grave and stole his head.

1920- On the last day of testimony at the Scopes Monkey Trial defense attorney Clarence Darrow surprised everyone by calling prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan to the witness stand. In a dramatic all day debate, Darrow and Bryan grappled over the validity of the Bible vs, Charles Darwin’s theory. The confrontation was dramatized in Stanley Kramer’s 1965 film “Inherit the Wind”.

1941-Bob Clampett's cartoon"the Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Daffy
Duck as Duck Tracy. "i'm gonna rrrrrrrrrrrubbb ya out, see !"

1964 - 1st surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"

1968 - Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" becomes the first heavy
metal song to hit charts, it comes in at #117 The song got it’s unique name because frontman Doug Ingle wrote it as “In the Garden of Eden”. But he was so drunk and stoned, that all that came out was “Inagaddadavida” The album sold millions, was the first to win the new Platinum record and stayed in the top 100 for four years.

1969-Tranquility Base- The Eagle has Landed. Apollo 11’s Lunar Module the LEM first landed on the Moon. The astronauts spent a night’s sleep and preparing and stepped out on the Lunar surface the next day.

1973- Bruce Lee died of cerebral endema one month before his last film Enter the Dragon premiered. The handsome martial arts movie star single-handedly made Kung Fu a national craze and the Chop-Socky genre film a regular in world movie theaters. He was buried in his Enter The Dragon Chinese outfit. Bruce Lee was 33.

1976-Warner\Lambert, makers of Trident sugarless gum, comes out with their slogan "Sugarless gum is recommended by four out of five dentists who chew gum". When people asked what gum did the fifth dentist recommend, they were brushed.

1984 - Jim Fixx, creator of the Jogging craze through his hit book Running, died at 58 of a heart attack. Fix was a good friend of animator Howard Basis of Ovation Films, they were both members of the NY Runners CLub.